Who's afraid of ASADA?

The Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority has cast a net over clubs and players in our two biggest football codes as it probes the use of banned substances. But just how widespread is the use of performance enhancing drugs in professional sport in Australia, and how effective is ASADA at catching high-level drug cheats? David Mark investigates.

The Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority is coming under increasing pressure to produce solid evidence from its investigation into the AFL and the NRL.

Politicians, former ASADA employees and doctors have told Background Briefing that the organisation's credibility and reputation is at stake.

ASADA's current investigation has been made more difficult by the confusion surrounding sporting supplements—what's banned and what isn't.

It's sometimes impossible to know just what's in the pills, powders and potions sold under the ever proliferating range of products known as ‘sports supplements’.

Dr Donald Kuah, the club doctor for the NRL team Wests Tigers says he gets approaches all the time from what he calls snake oil salesmen; like the time the Tigers star five eighth, Benji Marshall, was out with a shoulder injury.

‘We would get approaches from individuals who would say, "Well OK, he’s had these dislocations—we've got these marketable techniques or marketable supplements that would help.” I call them the snake oil salesmen. They pop out of the woodwork...I think any time that I've asked for scientific evidence I get very little of it. So a lot of it is rhetoric and salesmanship really.’

And often what's on the label of these supplements doesn't even reflect what's in the bottle. The head of sports nutrition at the Australian Institute of Sport, Louise Burke, says some supplements manufacturers deliberately contaminate their product, trying to deliver a more potent (and possibly banned) substance to drive word-of-mouth sales.

‘[W]e do know that some manufacturers actually deliberately put things like steroids or stimulants into the products so that people can get that immediate return or kick or excitement, and that product [then] becomes a good seller.’

She says sports people can easily be trapped into taking performance enhancing drugs through these types of products.

‘[I]t's confusing to scientists—it must be absolutely confusing to the consumer,’ Ms Bourke said.

David Mark's full investigation into ASADA will air Sunday 21 at 8.05 am.

Take for instance the supplement known as Humanofort. The supplement's American website says it regulates hormone levels, speeds recovery, increases sexual drive and helps memory, amongst other claims.

It also says Humanofort contains IGF-1, a peptide which is a banned by the World Anti-Doping Agency. And that's also how it was advertised here—with IGF-1 listed as an ingredient.

But then Australia's Therapeutic Goods Administration started asking questions. It analysed Humanofort and discovered Humanofort doesn't contain IGF-1.Humanofort is now sold in Australia without any mention of IGF-1.

But how would an athlete know what the truth is? After all ASADA says it can't advise on what is and isn't in a supplement.

IGF-1 is one of the drugs that the Minister for Sport, Jason Clare, warned of when he launched the Crime Commission's report into drugs, sport, and organised crime earlier this year.

‘The work that the Australian Crime Commission has done has found the use of prohibited substances including peptides, hormones and illicit drugs is widespread amongst professional athletes,’ Minister Clare said.

An amateur rugby union player from the New South Wales South Coast (who spoke on condition of anonymity with Radio National) is one of the few athletes who's been banned in relation to the use of peptide—or in his case, attempted use.

‘Yeah well some of my mates at the gym, they were using it and they bought it from overseas previously and theirs got through,’ he said. ‘And the second time we all tried to get it, like all of ours got seized. Then ASADA contacted me and said they wanted to interview me. Then they interviewed me and I just told them that I never received it, never got it, never used it. And they banned me for two years.’

He says his teammates couldn’t believe that ASADA would spend resources chasing down and banning players at local level, considering that there are bigger fish to fry.

Catherine Ordway is ASADA's former head of enforcement.She also wonders whether ASADA is using its time and money wisely by chasing amateur club-level athletes.

‘When you think about taxpayers' funding and how we should be using those resources, you'd have to really ask yourself the question whether it is a good use,’ she said. ‘I don't think so... We've now come out of our infancy at ASADA to the stage where we should be really focusing on elite level athletes I think.'

Still, Ms Ordway worries that the current probe into the highest levels of Australian sport may come up empty handed—tarnishing ASADA’s mission before it has even gained momentum.

‘What I would hate to see is a situation where all this noise and all this dust is being created but there's actually nothing at the end of it; that would be disappointing,’ she said.

The former head of ASADA, Richard Ings, admits big expectations have been placed on the current investigation into doping in elite sport.

‘There is certainly a lot of reputational risk in this situation at the moment,’ Mr Ings said. ‘With the announcements that were made on 7 February there is massive expectations that there will be a significant number of anti-doping violations which come out.’

There's no question expectations have been raised by the Crime Commission's suggestion that drug use is widespread in Australian sport, not to mention ASADA's investigation into the Essendon AFL club and 41 current and former NRL players.

The Greens senator, Richard Di Natale, believes the reputation of both the Crime Commission and ASADA is on the line.

‘We've seen the Australian sport tarnished,’ Senator Di Natale said. ‘And the question will be has that been fair? Have the Crime Commission and ASADA acted appropriately in making those claims, raising them in the way they did? And that's what I think the whole of the sporting world in fact most of the Australian community are waiting for now is to see what sort of action will follow from the statements that have been made. And if they are unable to provide evidence for those claims then I would suggest that the reputation of both of those agencies will suffer seriously.’

Transcript

David Mark: In early February a press conference was held in Parliament House in Canberra that sent Australian sport into a tailspin.

Jason Clare: The findings are shocking and they'll disgust Australian sports fans.

David Mark: The Minister for Home Affairs, Jason Clare, was joined that morning by the Sports Minister Kate Lundy, and the heads of the Australian Crime Commission and the Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority, or ASADA. Flanked by the ashen-faced CEOs of Australia's major professional sports, including the AFL, the NFL, rugby union, soccer and cricket, Jason Clare released a seemingly damning report. It was the result of a one-year investigation by the Crime Commission, codenamed Aperio, into performance enhancing drug use in Australian sport and its links with organised crime.

Jason Clare: The work that the Australian Crime Commission has done has found the use of prohibited substances including peptides, hormones and illicit drugs is widespread amongst professional athletes. The findings indicate the drugs are being facilitated by sports scientists, coaches, support staff, as well as doctors and pharmacists, and in some cases, sports scientists and others orchestrating the doping of entire teams. In some cases, players being administered with drugs that have not yet been approved for human use.

David Mark: The founding CEO of ASADA, Richard Ings, called it the blackest day in Australian sport.

Richard Ings: My comments on the day were based about the fact that we had the Justice Minister, the Sports Minister, the head of every major Australian professional code getting up there in unison in the blue room of Parliament House to make a statement that this is not just athletes cheating, this is athletes cheating with criminals. It could not be a more profound announcement by the key leaders in sport and government in Australia, and that's what prompted me to say this is the blackest day in Australian sport.

David Mark: What followed was a media firestorm of fear and finger pointing, followed by anger as it emerged the Crime Commission's report contained a lot of general accusations but precious few details. What did 'widespread' mean?

Jason Mazanov: It's interesting that they use the word 'widespread'.

Donald Kuah: At the time, like the majority of people, I was very surprised and shocked by the allegations.

Graham Annesley: Widespread doesn't necessarily mean prolific.

David Mark: Just how bad is the problem of performance enhancing drug use in Australian sport?

Scott Sattler: Are there players that are taking short cuts? I've got no doubt there are players that are thinking about it or are engaging in taking short cuts.

David Mark: How effective has ASADA been in stamping out drugs in Australian sport, and will it catch any drug cheats now?

Louise Burke: What I would hate to see is a situation where all this noise and all this dust has been created but there's actually nothing at the end of it. That would be disappointing.

David Mark: Hello, I'm David Mark, and this is Background Briefing.

Since that initial press conference more details have slowly come to light. The focus of the Crime Commission's investigation was Australia's two highest profile football codes, the Australian Football League and the National Rugby League. ASADA is in the process of interviewing more than 100 people. We now know ASADA is investigating the Essendon AFL club. It's also investigating 31 current and 10 former NRL players. Background Briefing has been told that more than half of those are likely to be current and former players from the Cronulla Sharks.

There is a link; the sports scientist Stephen Dank. Background Briefing has had two long conversations with Stephen Dank, but he wouldn't do an interview. One associate of Stephen Dank describes him as 'a brilliant, brilliant man who will push the envelope but never go off the line'. He's also been described as a rogue scientist. Stephen Dank was a consultant at Essendon last year before he was let go. He's also now revealed that he was in close contact with the club doctor of the Melbourne Demons AFL club, Dan Bates. Text messages that Mr Dank has released suggest he was advising Dr Bates on a supplement's program for the players at the club.

He was briefly a consultant at Cronulla in 2011 but was asked to leave after a run-in with the club's doctor. Stephen Dank was administering a supplements program to the playing rosters of both Essendon and Cronulla. Those supplements included peptides which he says were all allowable under the World Anti-Doping or WADA Code. He was injected players, he says with vitamins. But as he told the ABC's 7.30, he didn't break WADA rules.

Stephen Dank: Oh, look, they had intravenous injections for vitamin B and vitamin C, which are quite compliant with the WADA Code.

David Mark: WADA stipulates that no player can be injected with more than 50 millilitres of any substance per six-hour period. Stephen Dank had contacts with many NRL players through his five-year stint at Manly and consulting work at other clubs. He also owns an anti-ageing clinic in Sydney which sells supplements, including peptides, which are legal for general use. The Commission's report makes specific mention of 'the role of a sports scientist who benefited financially from the sale of peptides and hormones, advocated their use, and directed their application at a number of sporting clubs'. Stephen Dank would be a key witness in ASADA's investigation, but he is refusing to take part.

Martin Hardie: Having now had some conversations with people, including Stephen Dank and others, as to what has gone on, I've got some idea of the background to the report, if I can put it that way.

David Mark: Martin Hardie is a lecturer in law at Deakin University who has been researching doping in sport for more than a decade.

Martin Hardie: So with that knowledge you can read the report and go, okay, they are referring to this incident or this allegation, but then the rest of it is really just a hodgepodge of different things that have been in the public domain in one way or another for a very long time. So what's happened is some reports, for example, on organised crime, trafficking of doping substances in Italy, has been matched up with an allegation or not even an allegation that possibly somebody has got a connection with a bikie and therefore it has become, ipso facto, organised crime is involved. So there doesn't really seem to be a lot of meat to this report.

David Mark: The Crime Commissions operation Aperio focused specifically on a new suite of drugs, mainly peptides with names like GHRP-6, CJC-1295, AOD-9604, and Hexarelin, human growth hormone (hGH), and insulin-like growth factor or IGF-1. The report says the market for these drugs has increased dramatically in Australia in recent years. Customs says the number of these drugs coming into the country has more than tripled. And the use of peptides and supplements is becoming widespread, particularly among young men in Australian gyms.

Rugby player: Oh a fair few, I know a fair few of my friends from Sydney take it as well.

David Mark: Do they do anything? Do they help?

Rugby player: Yes, they definitely had a reduction in body fat.

David Mark: This young man is an amateur club rugby union player from the south coast of New South Wales who wants to remain anonymous. He is also one of the few Australian sports people who has been banned in relation to the use of peptides.

Rugby player: I know some of my mates get them from just supplement shops where you can buy proteins and that sort of thing from.

David Mark: How widespread is it?

Rugby player: Probably, I don't know, I guess a lot of the people that go to the gym, they might take them because it does reduce your body fat and that.

David Mark: Have any of your friends said, 'oh, we're a bit worried about the potential dangers of these things'?

Rugby player: No, not really. I don't know, I don't think…what is the dangers? I don't even know if there is any.

David Mark: We'll hear more from the rugby player later. Human growth hormone, IGF-1 and some peptides are banned drugs under the WADA Code. As to their safety:

Donald Kuah: Look, there are some inherent dangers any time that you stimulate increased growth hormone. It can lead to different changes to various organs in your body, it can lead to some metabolic imbalances as well.

David Mark: Dr Donald Kuah is an exercise and sports physician. He's the medical director of the New South Wales Institute of Sport and the club doctor for the National Rugby League team, the Wests Tigers.

Donald Kuah: These are all in general either hormones or peptides that would be precursors, in other words by injecting them or taking them orally they will lead to enhancing growth factors in your own body, and enhancement of growth hormones in your own body and therefore having anabolic type effects.

David Mark: And they're quite hard to detect, I believe, using current testing methods.

Donald Kuah: Yes, there are a number of the peptides now that are able to be detected through blood testing, but the majority still are unable to be detected, as I understand it.

David Mark: Unlike anabolic steroids. This new generation of drugs offers a shortcut for an athlete who wants to build muscle for speed and strength or to help recovery from injury. Some are banned under the WADA Code, some aren't. There's a whole range of supplements out there available on the net, from anti-ageing clinics or even from your local supplements or vitamins store.

Louise Burke: At the bottom of some supplements there is some good science.

David Mark: Louise Burke is the head of Sports Nutrition at the Australian Institute of Sport.

Louise Burke: And there's good hypotheses and there's some good evidence that some of the claims that they make work, but I think you'd have to say that a lot of the supplement industry really has a layer of hype and marketing on top of that, and sometimes the science is lost or sometimes it didn't even exist for those products.

David Mark: You can go on the net and you can buy some supplements or powders that may contain human growth hormone or IGF-1. How difficult is it to know exactly what you're getting and whether it is legal under the WADA Code or not?

Louise Burke: We know from studies that have been done that many of the products that are on the market have other ingredients in them that aren't on the label, and that's either because they are contaminants, but we also hear that there is deliberate contamination of some supplements, particularly in that bodybuilding category, if you like, because the word of mouth that when you take something and it really works is a powerful motivator in that very small community. So we do know that some manufacturers actually deliberately put things like steroids or stimulants into the products so that people get that immediate return or that kick or that excitement and that product becomes a good seller.

David Mark: There is a smorgasbord out there for athletes. Is it confusing?

Louise Burke: Look, it's confusing for scientists, so it must be absolutely confusing to the consumer.

David Mark: ASADA is also the body that advises athletes on drugs, but it says it can't tell them whether a specific supplement contains a prohibited substance. There are thousands of supplements on the market, they come and go all the time, and what's more they are not manufactured to pharmaceutical standards. For an athlete there may simply be no way of knowing whether a supplement contains a banned substance or not. And so ASADA's advice is simply 'don't use them'.

Take the supplement known as Humanofort, allegedly invented by a Romanian doctor. The supplement's American website says it regulates hormone levels, it reduces oxidative stress, speeds recovery, helps to generate new cells, increases sexual drive and helps memory, amongst other claims. It is understood Humanofort has been used by players at Manly, Cronulla and Essendon, but any athlete who wants to research what's in the supplement will be confronted with a range of confusing and contradictory information.

The supplement's American website and others that sell the product say Humanofort contains IGF-1 which is a banned substance on the WADA list, and that's also how it was advertised here, until last year. When Australia's Therapeutic Goods Administration saw that advertising, it started asking questions. IGF-1 is also what is known as a prohibited import in Australia. So the TGA tested Humanofort. And its findings? Humanofort doesn't contain IGF-1. Indeed, it doesn't contain many of the other ingredients the manufacturer claims it does. The TGA analysis found no scheduled or prohibited pharmaceutical ingredients. The substances it detected were vitamin B6 and two preservatives.

Now Humanofort is advertised in Australia without any mention of IGF-1 or a range of other peptides that are included on the American website. But how would an athlete who might buy the product from an overseas website know which of the many claims about what's in the supplement are true? Background Briefing put that question to ASADA, and this was their response:

'Humanofort is a supplement. ASADA cannot advise whether at any particular time a specific supplement or batch of a supplement contains prohibited substances.'

Stephen Dank says he discussed his supplements program several times with ASADA. While ASADA won't reveal any information about its current investigation, it says in general its policy is to not approve a supplement or a supplements program.

It was the Essendon football club which first blew the whistle on the use of supplements. The club held a press conference earlier this year, two days before the Crime Commission held theirs. This is what Essendon's coach, James Hird, said at the time.

James Hird: I'm very disappointed, shocked, I think is probably the best word. We believe that as the leader of the football department, as the coach, take full responsibility for what happens within our football department and I believe we've followed processes, we've put in place the right sort of processes. My understanding is that we worked within the framework that was given to us by the AFL and by WADA, and I'm shocked to be sitting here, really.

David Mark: Since then text messages from Stephen Dank have been published suggesting James Hird did know more about the supplements program. Mr Dank also says he injected James Hird with a substance called Hexarelin, which is banned for athletes under the WADA Code. James Hird says the claims are horrifying. He was interviewed by ASADA last Wednesday and later released a statement saying 'I welcomed the opportunity to tell the truth today'. As a coach he can't be banned under WADA rules for using Hexarelin, but the AFL could penalise him if it determines he has brought the game into disrepute.

It was queries about Stephen Dank's methods that brought about his downfall at Cronulla the year before. At a recent Cronulla game, a former club employee, Jo, told Background Briefing that the club's doctor, David Givney, had started asking questions.

Jo: David Givney came in and said I'm not happy with what's going on.

David Mark: Matters came to a head in early 2011 when one player, Isaac Gordon, presented to Dr Givney with large-scale bruising. Background Briefing has been told Dr Givney accused Stephen Dank of using a blood thinning medication on Isaac Gordon. Stephen Dank says that's wrong, and a recent newspaper report quotes Isaac Gordon saying he was never injected by Stephen Dank. But Jo says Dr Givney was adamant that Stephen Dank had to go.

Jo: The man did not want the guy in the club. He offered his resignation, he said 'him or me'. He is a respected man in the community.

David Mark: He offered his resignation at the time?

Jo: At the time, yes.

David Mark: And what did the club say?

Jo: They didn't what his resignation, they got rid of Dank.

David Mark: But two years later when the Crime Commission report was released, the club sacked Dr Givney and three other staff members over what it calls management failures. David Givney is now considering whether to sue Cronulla for defamation and wrongful dismissal.

A few years earlier, Stephen Dank came to the attention of ASADA over his use of calf blood injections while he was at Manly. At the time Richard Ings was ASADA's CEO.

Richard Ings: That's right, at the time there were media reports of the use of calf's blood, there were also media reports of the use of a product called Actovegin. These products at that time and now are not banned under the WADA Code.

David Mark: So the fact that there were some practices that you weren't particularly sure about, did that raise any flags about the other practices that this person might be using?

Richard Ings: When there are practices which are pushing the boundaries, it doesn't raise red flags about individuals, but what it does do, it does prompt a testing agency like ASADA to perhaps conduct a little bit of target testing.

David Mark: And did you do that?

Richard Ings: Yes, Manly and other players at that time definitely were subject to target testing.

David Mark: Those tests didn't reveal any banned substances. Like all samples taken by ASADA, they were frozen and could be retested in the future.

The phrase 'pushing the boundaries' is one that comes up a lot in the discussion around sports science and the use of supplements in Australia. The Australian Institute of Sport is held up as a founder of the sports science discipline and is still considered a leader in the field. The institute's director for performance science and innovation, Dr Nick Brown, says pushing the boundaries is part of sports science.

Nick Brown: So my understanding of the WADA Code is there's a line and it's quite clear, you're in or you're out. The challenge with the grey area would be the development of new drugs or new processes that currently haven't been considered, because of course you can't legislate against things you don't know about, although there are attempts to try to keep up with that. So yes, there probably is a bit of a grey area there because it's a moving field, it's developing fast.

David Mark: As a doctor of a national rugby league club, Donald Kuah gets approached all the time from salesmen who are 'pushing the boundaries'.

Donald Kuah: Looking at things that may be animal substances, unproven, perhaps not seen as particularly black and white in terms of the WADA guidelines.

David Mark: Like the time the Tigers star five eighth, Benji Marshall, was out with a shoulder injury.

Donald Kuah: So with Benji we would get approaches from individuals who would say, 'Well. okay, he's had these dislocations, we've got these marketable techniques or marketable supplements that would help, and it's amazing, must have,' and that's sent usually as an email or a letter to the club, almost saying that we'd be negligent not to take it on. I call them the snake oil salesmen. They pop out of the woodwork.

David Mark: Why do you call them snake oil salesmen?

Donald Kuah: I think any time that I've asked for scientific evidence, I get very little. A lot of it is rhetoric and salesmanship really.

David Mark: What sort of claims are they making?

Donald Kuah: That it would accelerate healing by double, 100%, 200% accelerated healing, that shoulders or fractures would be doubly stronger. I know for a fact this is not just myself with our club that get this, this is across the board. There are certainly stories that are bandied around amongst the industry that would suggest that there are at least people pushing boundaries.

Nick Brown: We're looking at the AIS physiology lab where we do testing, so what we can see at the moment is one of our race walkers undergoing a physiological test which is measuring their oxygen capacity…

David Mark: For Dr Nick Brown at the AIS, staying on the right side of the boundary is simply a matter of upholding good sports science.

Nick Brown: Sports science really is about using scientific principle or method as applied to sport. Peer review is a critical element to being a good scientist, you need to be able to test your ideas amongst colleagues and be challenged with your ideas, and I think we need sport scientists who are willing to participate in an institutional environment rather than being in an isolated environment.

David Mark: And what's the danger of having someone operate in isolation?

Nick Brown: There is a potential conflict of interest with your employment goals I think and the recommendations. So if you're employed directly by a club or a coach to win and you have a performance indicator in your employment contract that says you'll need to increase an athlete's ability in this domain, you need to meet that criteria to keep your job. So if you fail to meet these criteria there is potential that you're going to lose your job. So the challenge then becomes what means do you go to to meet those job requirements to keep your job. I think that's where the potential conflict of interest might arise.

David Mark: And what means could you use?

Nick Brown: Well, as the ACC report suggests, some may use performance enhancing drugs. That might get you there faster and might certainly keep the coach happy with your progress.

Hugh Seward: It is an arms race, and clubs respond to that arms race in different ways.

David Mark: The head of the AFL Medical Officers Association, Dr Hugh Seward, has been warning about the dangers of sports scientists operating in isolation for a year.

Hugh Seward: I suppose I didn't expect it to come quite like this, but we had expressed concern and I know the CEO of the AFL Andrew Demetriou had expressed some concern too about the influence of sports science. They run the risk, if they are just looking for the edge at all costs, it can fall foul of what is a desired and preferable approach of winning at all costs but with good processes.

David Mark: AFL clubs have budgets worth tens of millions of dollars that they'll spend on full-time sports scientists, physiotherapists, strength and conditioning coaches, nutritionists, psychologists, as well as the head coach and many assistant coaches. And yet the club doctors who theoretically should be overseeing the health and welfare of players, including their supplement use, are all part-time.

Hugh Seward: I think their part-time nature has been to the detriment of some of the processes within the club. They need to be involved in the decision about any supplement use. Ethics and ethical training is part of the medical course and perhaps doesn't play as big a role in the training of sports scientists and I think that's an area that needs to be addressed in sports science training but also in their practice.

David Mark: Sports scientists can get accreditation. Professor David Bishop is a board member of Exercise and Sports Science Australia, the industry's professional body.

David Bishop: It's a fairly stringent process, so you need to have a three-year degree in exercise and sports science from a university, you need to also have some sort of postgraduate qualification, whether it be honours, masters or increasingly a PhD, and you also need to have 500 hours of working underneath the mentorship of an accredited sports scientist or someone who would be eligible to be an accredited sports scientist.

David Mark: But unlike the other health professions, that accreditation isn't recognised by the government.

David Bishop: The difference is that currently physiotherapy and medicine are protected under the law in that you have to have accreditation or be registered to practice as either a physiotherapist or a doctor. At the moment it's voluntary for sports science. I think we would argue that's probably led to some of the issues we've seen recently.

David Mark: So you're arguing that you need that extra step, you need that legal backing. Sports scientists should have an accreditation which is recognised by government and by the law.

David Bishop: We've spoken to a number of sports scientists, and I guess phrase that keeps coming up is that it's a no-brainer. If you work with any athletes, the medical doctor needs to be accredited, the physiotherapist needs to be accredited, the dietician needs to be accredited, and really the only person in the high performance team that doesn't need to be accredited currently is the sports scientist, and I think they see that as a major weakness.

David Mark: The demand for official accreditation is being pushed by the Australian Greens Senator, Richard Di Natale.

Richard Di Natale: We need to establish what sort of framework we think is acceptable for someone to be given the label of a sports scientist. At the moment really it ranges from people with a tremendous expertise across a range of disciplines, nutrition, exercise, physiology and so on, some of whom have PhDs, through to other people at the other end of the spectrum where you've got somebody who may have done very, very little training who then essentially passes themselves off as a sports scientist and is still able to do many the things that our sporting clubs let sports scientists do; inject people with particular drugs, organise supplement regimes and so on.

David Mark: The central plank of the Crime Commission's report is that banned performance enhancing drugs are being widely used in Australian professional sport, that it's orchestrated and condoned. But as yet there is no proof that's true. In part that's because drug testing is largely ineffectual. The former head of ASADA, Richard Ings:

Richard Ings: ASADA will be catching between 40 and 50 athletes per year involved in doping, and my own view is that that is just a fraction of the athletes across all levels of Australian sport, and we have nearly 90 sports, that at some stage during the year took a banned substance.

David Mark: So will there always be doping going on?

Richard Ings: Yes.

David Mark: ASADA's investigation might still have months to run, and even then we might not know the full story. ASADA won't produce a written public report, rather it will provide information to the tribunals of the AFL and the NRL who will then make a ruling on whether a penalty is appropriate.

One of the few people who's been briefed by the Crime Commission and ASADA is Graham Annesley. He's a former NRL referee and now the New South Wales Minister for Sport.

Graham Annesley: The sense that I came away with was that there was some concerning information that was made available about the use of illegal substances in sport. However, I believe, based on the information that I was given and I still believe that it only affects a minority of athletes, and certainly the investigation to this point has focused on only a couple of professional sporting organisations.

David Mark: Most people in the AFL and the NRL believe some drug taking is going on, but they say it is not widespread or orchestrated, rather they say it's happening on an individual basis or at the lower tiers of sport.

Scott Sattler played rugby league mainly for the Gold Coast and Penrith from the mid-90s to 2004. In his day the main drugs on offer were steroids.

Scott Sattler: Never, ever used them and never thought about using them. Was I offered them? Yes, I was offered them, as a lot of players would be.

David Mark: Who was making the offers?

Scott Sattler: Oh gee, you've always got people who hang around professional sport that befriend players, and I suppose it's just an off-the-cuff comment to see what sort of reaction they get. When they don't get a reaction they move on probably to the next person and probably get the same reaction again.

David Mark: The Australian Crime Commission and ASADA are now warning about peptides and human growth hormones, those sort of drugs. Are you are aware of any players using these drugs or have you heard of any players using these drugs?

Scott Sattler: Do I know of any players that are using them? No, it's probably only the reports or the allegations that I've been reading. Are there players that are taking short cuts? I've got no doubt there are players that are thinking about or engaging in taking short cuts, but it is the most minority of numbers, and I mean the most minority of numbers, the smallest amount of percentage of maybe a young player that is trying to get to another level.

David Mark: You say you think players are taking short cuts or drugs. Why?

Scott Sattler: Well, I suppose, as I said, if it's a younger player, it's getting to the next level, and getting to the next level means more exposure, more exposure means possibly more money.

David Mark: It may be a reserve grader trying to get into first grade or younger player on the way up. NRL club doctor Donald Kuah:

Donald Kuah: It's not just the player but it's players' managers, it's trainers, it's well intentioned uncles and aunties who will say to a fringe player, so someone who is perhaps under-20s or under-18s or a fringe reserve grade player that says, well, you need to do something to get a contract for next year, and to get a major contract they might just need that little step up. And I think from a motivational point of view they have more motivation to take those risks than an entrenched first grader.

David Mark: Since ASADA began in 2006 the NRL says there has been two first grade players suspended under anti-doping rules. There has been none from the AFL.

So who is ASADA catching? Remember the amateur club rugby player from the New South Wales south coast? He was banned for two years for the attempted use of the peptide GHRP-6 that he'd bought on the net.

Rugby player: Yeah, well, some of my mates at the gym, they were using it and they bought it from overseas previously and theirs got through. And then the second time we all tried to get it, like all of ours got seized. Then ASADA contacted me and said they wanted to interview me. Then they interviewed me and I just told them that I never received it, never got it, never used it. And they banned me for two years

David Mark: What did you think when you got the phone call from ASADA?

Rugby player: I didn't even know what ASADA was actually, I didn't know who they were or what they were about.

David Mark: Were you surprised that the anti-doping authority was ringing you, was knocking on your door?

Rugby player: Yes, definitely, especially seeing as I only play local rugby.

David Mark: Did you know that it was an illegal substance, it was banned under the World Anti-Doping Authority's Code?

Rugby player: No, no.

David Mark: Just for the record, have you ever been drug tested? Is that the sort of thing that ever comes up at amateur club rugby level?

Rugby player: No, I've never been drug tested in my life for playing rugby. Even when ASADA interviewed me, they never drug tested me or anything.

David Mark: What did you think about the fact that you were going to get a two-year ban?

Rugby player: I thought it was pretty ridiculous really.

David Mark: Why?

Rugby player: I just never took anything, so yes, I thought you'd have to take something to get a ban.

David Mark: What did your mates at the football club say?

Rugby player: They just couldn't believe it, they thought it was ridiculous that ASADA was chasing down people at a local level and giving them bans when there's bigger fish to fry than that.

David Mark: That story isn't unique. In 2010 customs intercepted two separate packages of GHRP-6 destined for two teammates at an amateur Queensland rugby union club. After a year-long investigation, one player was suspended by the Australian Rugby Union for four years for possession and the attempted trafficking of a growth hormone. The other player was suspended for two years. Indeed the crime commission uses these incidents as a case study in its report. It says there is a high risk of sub-elite athletes using drugs. But the qualifying language it uses reflects the uncertainty of ASADA's investigation and its evidence:

'Although it was not able to be established in the investigation, ASADA assessed it as possible that the two individuals who had imported these substances were complicit in the importation of GHRP-6 from Canada and that other team members of these individuals were using GHRP-6.'

Law lecturer and sports doping researcher Martin Hardie:

Martin Hardie: Well, I don't think it's evidence of widespread drug use, I think it's evidence of what we all know has been going on, that some people are importing things and getting caught, but it's no evidence of anything systemic, widespread, it is no evidence of organised crime being involved, it's just people, from what I can work out, buying things over the internet.

David Mark: The former head of ASADA's enforcement unit, Catherine Ordway, says ASADA is wasting time and money on chasing amateurs.

Catherine Ordway: When you thinking about tax payers' funding and how we should be using those resources, you'd have to really ask yourself the question whether it is a good use. I don't think so. We've now come out of our infancy at ASADA to the stage where we should really be focusing on elite level athletes I think.

David Mark: A bill that is currently before the parliament will give ASADA more powers to investigate drugs in sport. In its original form the bill gave ASADA the right to compel athletes to give evidence. Greens Senator Richard Di Natale says it was too much.

Richard Di Natale: ASADA effectively want to grant themselves quite extraordinary powers, and the original draft that was put before the parliament was one that overturned some pretty fundamental legal principles; the right to silence, not to incriminate oneself and so on. We think that individual athletes should be given the same rights as we afford to other people who are being investigated for, well, more serious criminal offences. The right to silence, not to incriminate oneself and so on have now been struck from that bill, and we think that's a very sensible way forward.

David Mark: For now ASADA is investigating Essendon, one of the biggest AFL clubs in the country, as well as 41 current and former NRL players. It has asked for and received more staff to help the investigation. Catherine Ordway:

Catherine Ordway: Now you can see ASADA is bringing in a lot more investigators and they're focusing on the elite level, they're looking at AFL clubs and NRL clubs, and you can say that's an appropriate use of government funding.

David Mark: You've worked for ASADA, you know how the system works, do you think they will get an anti-doping ruling?

Catherine Ordway: You'd certainly hope so with all the resources being put into it. What I would hate to see is a situation where all this noise and all this dust has been created but there's actually nothing at the end of it. That would be disappointing.

David Mark: The tricky thing for ASADA is the lack of positive drug tests. The New South Wales Sports Minister Graham Annesley was briefed on the kind of information ASADA does have.

Graham Annesley: That included interviews, it included statements, it included admissions in some cases, and I believe even some electronic surveillance.

David Mark: So they did have admissions from sports people or people associated with sporting clubs, that people had been using drugs?

Graham Annesley: Well, they didn't tell me who those admissions came from, but I can only assume it's from people associated with the industry. But they did tell me that they had admissions along with statements.

David Mark: Did you get the sense that there will be anti-doping violations that come out of this process?

Graham Annesley: Their expectation was that yes, there will be.

David Mark: But football fans who have been watching for two and a half months are getting frustrated.

Vox pop: I hate it, to be honest, I think the sport should be free of drugs, and I think it has been dragged on for a very long time, and they need to just find the people that have done it and they've got the research now that they can do it and they've got the tools to find it, so I think that it should just be over and done with so we can get on with the season.

Vox pop: I think it's a whole beat up and I think if ASADA has got any decent information they should bring it out, charge people, get it over with and let us get back to watching rugby league mate.

David Mark: It's easy to criticise from the sidelines, but it's likely the ASADA investigation will run for many months more. Its job has been made harder because without positive drug tests it has to build up more evidence. Richard Ings:

Richard Ings: ASADA will go to the player that they have the most concrete evidence on first, lay out that evidence to the player and basically give that player an opportunity to contribute to their own defence by turning whistleblower on any other information that they may provide.

David Mark: They may come out with 10, 20, 30, 40 anti-doping rule violations, there may be none. Is it a high-stakes game for ASADA?

Richard Ings: There is certainly a lot of reputational risk in this situation at the moment. With the announcements that were made on 7 February there is massive expectation that there will be a significant number of doping violations which come out. So there is pressure on ASADA, but the pressure on ASADA will be to conduct a fair and thorough investigation and come out with the right conclusions at the end of the day.

David Mark: There's no question expectations have been raised. There has been the Crime Commission's suggestion that drug use in professional sport was widespread, the sound and fury of incessant media coverage, not to mention the drawn out ASADA investigation.

Background Briefing has been asking for more than a month to interview the head of ASADA, Aurora Andruska, but our request has been declined.

Rightly or wrongly, Australian sport has been bruised by this episode. Greens Senator Richard Di Natale believes the reputation of the Crime Commission and ASADA is on the line.

Richard Di Natale: I think the credibility of both those agencies rests on ensuring that we get some sort of substantiation to the allegations that have been made, because as yet we haven't seen it. We've seen claim and counter claim, we've seen lots of headlines in the media and it makes for a really juicy story. We've seen Australian sport tarnished, and the question will be has that been fair? Have the Crime Commission and ASADA acted appropriately in making those claims, raising them in the way that they did? And that's what I think the whole of the sporting world in fact most of the Australian community are waiting for now, is to see what sort of action will follow from the statements that have been made. And if they are unable to provide evidence for those claims then I would suggest that the reputation of both of those agencies will suffer seriously.

David Mark: Background Briefing's coordinating producer is Linda McGinness, research by Jess Hill, technical production by Jennifer Parsonage, the executive producer is Chris Bullock, and I'm David Mark.